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Meyer Land & Cattle Co. v. Lincoln County Conservation Dist.9/14/2001
. App. 2d at 561 (plaintiff must show it was reasonably certain to recognize an identifiable future economic benefit). Rather, Meyer is asserting general damage to its reputation as a business. This sort of general public stigma is what the tort of defamation is meant to address.
Meyer attempts to rehabilitate its tortious interference claim by noting that it is a business entity, rather than an individual. As a result, Meyer argues, tainting of its business reputation is, in essence, a tortious interference with all of its business relationships and directly depletes its goodwill. Meyer has advanced no case law supporting its distinction, and the argument is not convincing. Meyer must still plead a specific business expectancy in order to move the claim from the realm of defamation to the realm of tortious interference. Additionally, Meyer's argument does not address the reliance on the same false statements supporting the defamation claim and does not distinguish Taylor's holding. See 25 Kan. App. 2d at 678-81.
We conclude Meyer's claims for abuse of power, failure to carry out statutory duties in good faith, and failure to comply with statutory duties are, in essence, incomplete restatements of his tortious interference count, which is in turn derivative of the defamation count. All are time barred under Taylor.
Turning now to Meyer's conspiracy claim, Meyer alleges the individual members of Lincoln's board of directors conspired on the above counts. Elements of a civil conspiracy are: (1) two or more persons; (2) an object to be accomplished; (3) a meeting of the minds in the object or course of action; (4) one or more unlawful overt acts; and (5) damages as the proximate result thereof. Stoldt v. City of Toronto, 234 Kan. 957, 967, 678 P.2d 153 (1984). In order for civil conspiracy to lie, the claim must base itself on a valid, actionable underlying tort. 234 Kan. at 967; Knight v. Neodesha Police Dept., 5 Kan. App. 2d 472, 476, 620 P. 2d 837 (1980). The court dismissed Meyer's petition based solely on the running of the statute of limitations for defamation. The issue is whether a tort that is time barred as a procedural matter may nevertheless form the basis for alleging harm in a civil conspiracy claim.
Kansas has not addressed this issue directly. In Knight, the court affirmed the dismissal of a number of substantive tort claims based on the lapse of the statute of limitations for libel and appeared to dismiss the plaintiff's accompanying conspiracy claims as well, without comment. See 5 Kan. App. 2d at 482-84 (court affirmed dismissal of untimely defamation count against another defendant, but did not reinstate claim of civil conspiracy against defendant upon remand). Although one may imply that Kansas would consider a time-barred tort unqualified to form the basis for civil conspiracy, Knight did not explicitly make this holding.
Other jurisdictions are split. In Chevalier v. Animal Rehabilitation Center, Inc., 839 F. Supp. 1224 (N.D. Tex. 1993), the court noted that Texas considered the statute of limitations to be merely a bar to recovery, rather than a substantive defense attacking the merits of the case--the wrongful act still existed. As a result, the underlying bad act could support a conspiracy claim even where the statute of limitations had run on that act. 839 F. Supp at 1232-33. In Texas, civil conspiracy is considered to be an action for personal injury to another and has an independent 2-year period of limitations. Stevenson v. Koutzarov, 795 S.W. 2d 313, 318 (Tex. App. 1990), writ den. (Jan. 30, 1991).
Other jurisdictions hold that where the underlying tort is barred by the applicable statute of limitations, the conspi
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